WGR Werk, Geldzaken, Recht en de Beurs
Hier kun je alles kwijt over sollicitaties, werksituaties, belastingen, (handelen op) de beurs, hypotheken, beleggingen en salarissen, arbeidscontracten of geschillen met je (huis)baas. Alles over werk, geldzaken en recht dus.
Maar als punt bij paaltje komt kan china het zich veroorloven om bubbles op te blazen met al hun reserves en spaargeld. Wij niet.
Helemaal niet, als china al hun dollars dumpt, dan dumpen alle andere landen met dollars hun troep ook. Als China daarnaast hun munt de vrije loop laat, worden alle Chinezen ineens rijk terwijl de Amerikanen straatarm worden (lage dollar, kunnen dus niks meer kopen op de wereldmarkt, hoge rmb en chinezen kunnen alles kopen op de wereldmarkt).quote:Op woensdag 10 februari 2010 11:47 schreef luckyb1rd het volgende:
China heeft papieren weapons of mass destruction. Zou het bluf zijn om Amerika op de knieën te dwingen vanwege Taiwan en Tibet? want ze kunnen eigenlijk ook niet zonder elkaar, als Amerika down gaat, gaat china mee..
Let wel, bovenstaande is geen optie, dit moet vroeg of laat een keertje gebeuren. Cold-Turkey, hoe langer men wacht hoe erger het wordt.
China warns U.S. that 'trade war' will hurt Americans even more
By John Pomfret
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, March 21, 2010; 1:53 PM
BEIJING -- China's minister of commerce warned that United States on Sunday that if it launches a "trade war" against China by leveling punitive tariffs on Chinese imports, the United States would suffer the most.
Minister Chen Deming also said what he termed was the U.S. government's "obsession" with China's exchange rate could not be seriously addressed until the U.S. government stopped blocking the export of high-tech products, such as supercomputers and satellites, to China.
"If some congressman insist on labeling China as a currency manipulator and slap punitive tariffs on Chinese products, then the China government will find it impossible not to react," Chen said in an interview with The Washington Post. "If the United States uses the exchange rate to start a new trade war, China will be hurt but the American people and U.S. companies will be hurt even more."
Chen's comments, made in an hour-long interview at the ministry Sunday afternoon, reflect the exasperation inside the Chinese leadership with the U.S. attempt to push China to let the value of its currency, the yuan, rise against the dollar. In addition, Chen's remarks also underscored how China is seeking to use the current trade dispute with the United States to push its own agenda with Washington -- to get rid of or at least lighten the 20-year-old sanctions limiting American exports to China.
President Obama has contended that if China lets the yuan appreciate, U.S. exports would increase. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) is authoring legislation that would slap tariffs on Chinese goods if China does not allow its currency to float more freely. On April 15, the Treasury Department is scheduled to release a report on worldwide currencies. Chen said the Chinese government did not want to see Beijing labeled as a "currency manipulator."
Chen, who has studied at Harvard University and at Johns Hopkins University's center at Nanjing University, said he didn't understand what the United States was attempting to achieve by threatening China.
"You're not going to get 1.3 billion Chinese to change by insulting them," he said. "Could it be related to upcoming elections? I don't know. Because economically it makes no sense."
Chen said if the U.S. threats were geared toward limiting imports and decreasing America's trade imbalance that way, it wouldn't work. Perhaps imports from China would fall, but that wouldn't mean that Americans would start producing goods such as telephones and TVs again. "That production isn't going to return to America, that's just not practical," he said. "Globalization has changed all that."
"But if you want to increase your exports, this strategy also won't work," he warned. "How are you going to get China to buy more of your products if you insult it?"
Chen said the best way for the United States to increase its exports to China would be to relax restrictions on the export of high-technology and dual use goods to China. Since 1989, when China launched a crackdown on student-led protests around Tiananmen Square, the United States has limited some exports to China. Chen said those limits amounted to billions of a dollars a year of potential exports to China.
And he added that under such restrictions, talk about a more liberalized exchange regime in China is a non-starter. "If you want to discuss the exchange rate you have to do it under a free trading system," he said, "a system wherein if I want to buy something I can and if you want to sell it you can."
Chen gave a few examples of U.S. restrictions. After the massive earthquake in Sichuan in 2008, China sought to buy engines for a batch of Blackhawk helicopters that the United States had sold China in the 1980s when the two countries were cooperating against the then-Soviet Union. Chen said China was trying to make the purchase so it could use the helicopters to save people injured in the quake, but that the United States rejected the request. (U.S. officials have raised doubts about that China's claim, pointing out that Blackhawk helicopters have a limited carrying capacity.)
China solved its problem by borrowing helicopter engines from Russia and subsequently buying helicopters from Russia, Chen said. The same holds true for satellites, he added. China would rather buy them from the United States, but concerns about export controls have forced it to source satellites from Europe, Chen said.
"This is the reason why our trade balance with the United States is skewed," Chen said. "The United States has strict export controls to China."
And don't expect that China will simply do without these goods, he added. "We're a nation of 1.3 billion people. We graduated 7 million university students a year. We'll either make it ourselves or buy it from somewhere else."
Invoking an old Chinese proverb favored by Chairman Mao, he said, "just because the butcher is dead, doesn't mean we won't be able to eat pork."
Obama came into office saying he was going to review the limits on exports to certain countries. "But," Chen pointed out, "that was more than half a year ago and so far nothing has happened. He's said he wants exports to double in five years but I don't know whom he is going to sell them to."
Chen said that China does not want to see the trade issue politicized. To that end, he said a deputy trade minister, Zhong Shan, would arrive in the United States in the next few days to discuss trade issues with his counterparts at the Department of Commerce and the office of the U.S. Trade Representative.
"Both side needs to stay cool," he said. "We need to sit down and talk."
But if the United States does decide to slap tariffs on China, Chen said, American companies, which account for more than 60 percent of China's exports to the United States, would surely be hurt the most.
"In the end," Chen said, "America is the one that needs to adjust."
While some analysts in the have predicated that China would soon start to let the yuan appreciate, Chen's interview underscored the fact that there is a strong lobby in China opposing any revaluation. One reason why a revaluation would be dangerous for China, Chen said, was that profit margins of Chinese exporters were tiny -- ranging from 1.7 to 2 percentage points.
By John Pomfret
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, March 21, 2010; 1:53 PM
BEIJING -- China's minister of commerce warned that United States on Sunday that if it launches a "trade war" against China by leveling punitive tariffs on Chinese imports, the United States would suffer the most.
Minister Chen Deming also said what he termed was the U.S. government's "obsession" with China's exchange rate could not be seriously addressed until the U.S. government stopped blocking the export of high-tech products, such as supercomputers and satellites, to China.
"If some congressman insist on labeling China as a currency manipulator and slap punitive tariffs on Chinese products, then the China government will find it impossible not to react," Chen said in an interview with The Washington Post. "If the United States uses the exchange rate to start a new trade war, China will be hurt but the American people and U.S. companies will be hurt even more."
Chen's comments, made in an hour-long interview at the ministry Sunday afternoon, reflect the exasperation inside the Chinese leadership with the U.S. attempt to push China to let the value of its currency, the yuan, rise against the dollar. In addition, Chen's remarks also underscored how China is seeking to use the current trade dispute with the United States to push its own agenda with Washington -- to get rid of or at least lighten the 20-year-old sanctions limiting American exports to China.
President Obama has contended that if China lets the yuan appreciate, U.S. exports would increase. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) is authoring legislation that would slap tariffs on Chinese goods if China does not allow its currency to float more freely. On April 15, the Treasury Department is scheduled to release a report on worldwide currencies. Chen said the Chinese government did not want to see Beijing labeled as a "currency manipulator."
Chen, who has studied at Harvard University and at Johns Hopkins University's center at Nanjing University, said he didn't understand what the United States was attempting to achieve by threatening China.
"You're not going to get 1.3 billion Chinese to change by insulting them," he said. "Could it be related to upcoming elections? I don't know. Because economically it makes no sense."
Chen said if the U.S. threats were geared toward limiting imports and decreasing America's trade imbalance that way, it wouldn't work. Perhaps imports from China would fall, but that wouldn't mean that Americans would start producing goods such as telephones and TVs again. "That production isn't going to return to America, that's just not practical," he said. "Globalization has changed all that."
"But if you want to increase your exports, this strategy also won't work," he warned. "How are you going to get China to buy more of your products if you insult it?"
Chen said the best way for the United States to increase its exports to China would be to relax restrictions on the export of high-technology and dual use goods to China. Since 1989, when China launched a crackdown on student-led protests around Tiananmen Square, the United States has limited some exports to China. Chen said those limits amounted to billions of a dollars a year of potential exports to China.
And he added that under such restrictions, talk about a more liberalized exchange regime in China is a non-starter. "If you want to discuss the exchange rate you have to do it under a free trading system," he said, "a system wherein if I want to buy something I can and if you want to sell it you can."
Chen gave a few examples of U.S. restrictions. After the massive earthquake in Sichuan in 2008, China sought to buy engines for a batch of Blackhawk helicopters that the United States had sold China in the 1980s when the two countries were cooperating against the then-Soviet Union. Chen said China was trying to make the purchase so it could use the helicopters to save people injured in the quake, but that the United States rejected the request. (U.S. officials have raised doubts about that China's claim, pointing out that Blackhawk helicopters have a limited carrying capacity.)
China solved its problem by borrowing helicopter engines from Russia and subsequently buying helicopters from Russia, Chen said. The same holds true for satellites, he added. China would rather buy them from the United States, but concerns about export controls have forced it to source satellites from Europe, Chen said.
"This is the reason why our trade balance with the United States is skewed," Chen said. "The United States has strict export controls to China."
And don't expect that China will simply do without these goods, he added. "We're a nation of 1.3 billion people. We graduated 7 million university students a year. We'll either make it ourselves or buy it from somewhere else."
Invoking an old Chinese proverb favored by Chairman Mao, he said, "just because the butcher is dead, doesn't mean we won't be able to eat pork."
Obama came into office saying he was going to review the limits on exports to certain countries. "But," Chen pointed out, "that was more than half a year ago and so far nothing has happened. He's said he wants exports to double in five years but I don't know whom he is going to sell them to."
Chen said that China does not want to see the trade issue politicized. To that end, he said a deputy trade minister, Zhong Shan, would arrive in the United States in the next few days to discuss trade issues with his counterparts at the Department of Commerce and the office of the U.S. Trade Representative.
"Both side needs to stay cool," he said. "We need to sit down and talk."
But if the United States does decide to slap tariffs on China, Chen said, American companies, which account for more than 60 percent of China's exports to the United States, would surely be hurt the most.
"In the end," Chen said, "America is the one that needs to adjust."
While some analysts in the have predicated that China would soon start to let the yuan appreciate, Chen's interview underscored the fact that there is a strong lobby in China opposing any revaluation. One reason why a revaluation would be dangerous for China, Chen said, was that profit margins of Chinese exporters were tiny -- ranging from 1.7 to 2 percentage points.
Tja ze hebben dan wellicht wat centen, maar ook veelal geen baan meer dus dan loopt het rap af.quote:Op zondag 21 maart 2010 17:14 schreef arjanus het volgende:
[..]
Helemaal niet, als china al hun dollars dumpt, dan dumpen alle andere landen met dollars hun troep ook. Als China daarnaast hun munt de vrije loop laat, worden alle Chinezen ineens rijk terwijl de Amerikanen straatarm worden (lage dollar, kunnen dus niks meer kopen op de wereldmarkt, hoge rmb en chinezen kunnen alles kopen op de wereldmarkt).
Let wel, bovenstaande is geen optie, dit moet vroeg of laat een keertje gebeuren. Cold-Turkey, hoe langer men wacht hoe erger het wordt.
quote:Op zondag 21 maart 2010 20:27 schreef arjanus het volgende:
China warns U.S. that 'trade war' will hurt Americans even more
"If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans"
Mijn reisverslagen
Mijn reisverslagen
Bovenop binnenlandse onrust en enorme milieuproblemen....?quote:Op zondag 21 maart 2010 17:07 schreef arjanus het volgende:
Maar als punt bij paaltje komt kan china het zich veroorloven om bubbles op te blazen met al hun reserves en spaargeld. Wij niet.
idd die bubble gaat klappen in 2 jaar en dan zijn opeens ook een hoop ambtenaren de zak omdat hun corrupt verkregen huis geen zak meer waard is.quote:Op zondag 21 maart 2010 22:31 schreef Swetsenegger het volgende:
[..]
Bovenop binnenlandse onrust en enorme milieuproblemen....?
1/10 Van de rappers dankt zijn bestaan in Amerika aan de Nederlanders die zijn voorouders met een cruiseschip uit hun hongerige landen ophaalde om te werken op prachtige plantages.
"Oorlog is de overtreffende trap van concurrentie."
"Oorlog is de overtreffende trap van concurrentie."
Zo eens kijken hoe de chinese vrienden gaan reageren op importheffingen in de VS. En of de consumptie van goedkope zooi uit china daardoor afneemt, het lijkt me niet want in de VS heeft men toch zelf geen productiefaciliteiten meer staan om deze zooi te maken.quote:VS zetten druk op Chinese munt
Uitgegeven: 30 september 2010 08:32
Laatst gewijzigd: 30 september 2010 08:32
WASHINGTON - Het Amerikaanse Huis van Afgevaardigden heeft woensdag ingestemd met maatregelen om de Verenigde Staten te beschermen tegen de Chinese ondergewaardeerde munt, de yuan. Met 348 stemmen voor en 79 tegen werd de nieuwe wetgeving aangenomen.
Nu moet de Senaat zich er nog over buigen.
De zogeheten China Currency Bill moet leiden tot importheffingen op Chinese artikelen, zolang China de koers van de munt niet aanpast. Volgens de VS houdt China haar munt opzettelijk ondergewaardeerd, waardoor het land erg makkelijk kan exporteren.
De toevloed aan Chinese artikelen zorgt voor irritaties in de Verenigde Staten, waar de werkloosheid bijna 10 procent bedraagt.
Volgens China schenden de maatregelen de reglementen van de Wereldhandelsorganisatie. De WTO ziet toe op naleving van afspraken over de handel tussen landen.
De angel zit hem in "nu moet de senaat zich er nog over buigen". Want dat gaat nog weken duren.quote:Op donderdag 30 september 2010 08:48 schreef Basp1 het volgende:
[..]
Zo eens kijken hoe de chinese vrienden gaan reageren op importheffingen in de VS. En of de consumptie van goedkope zooi uit china daardoor afneemt, het lijkt me niet want in de VS heeft men toch zelf geen productiefaciliteiten meer staan om deze zooi te maken.
Eigen staatsobligaties kopen.
In en exportbeperkingen opleggen.
Markt beïnvloeden.
Volgende haltes.
Devaluatie van de Dollar
Inflatie voedsel en energie.
Prijzen laag houden.
etc.
In en exportbeperkingen opleggen.
Markt beïnvloeden.
Volgende haltes.
Devaluatie van de Dollar
Inflatie voedsel en energie.
Prijzen laag houden.
etc.
Wie bang is voor morgen, kan niet genieten van vandaag.
Religie is als taal, een basisbehoefte voor een maatschappij, iedereen spreekt zijn eigen dialect en even verder op begrijp je niet meer wat de ander zegt.
Religie is als taal, een basisbehoefte voor een maatschappij, iedereen spreekt zijn eigen dialect en even verder op begrijp je niet meer wat de ander zegt.
Europa doet er ook vrolijk aan mee.quote:Op zaterdag 2 oktober 2010 10:38 schreef Rbhp het volgende:
De US maakt zichzelf kapot, China voelt er niks van.
We produceren haast niets meer, behalve "diensten".
Onderwijs wordt uitgehold.
Ik word er toch wel somber door...
Wat zou hier de motivatie van China zijn? Iemand enig verstand van macroeconomie en politiek hier?quote:ATHENE - China gaat het noodlijdende Griekenland helpen om uit de financiële problemen te komen. Het Aziatische land is onder meer van plan om Griekse staatsobligaties te kopen, zodra Griekenland terugkeert op de financiële markten.
Dat zei de Chinese premier Wen Jiabao zaterdag tijdens zijn bezoek aan Griekenland. Jiabao maakte verder bekend dat China de import van Griekse producten wil bevorderen.
''Als Griekenland in problemen verkeert, is China bereid te helpen'', zei Jibao. De Chinese premier verwacht dat de Griekse economie herstelt in lijn met het herstel van de wereldwijde economie.
Investeren
Jiabao beloofde verder dat hij Chinese bedrijven zal vragen te investeren in Griekenland. Bovendien wil China een bedrag van 5 miljard dollar investeren in een Grieks-Chinees scheepvaartfonds. Het Aziatische land gaat ook meer investeren in de haven van Piraeus.
Het bezoek van Jiabao aan Griekenland maakt deel uit van een reis naar Europa. De Chinese premier brengt ook een bezoek aan België, Italië en Turkije.
Chinezen doorgronden is een kunst op zich. Ik kan wel een gokje wagen.quote:Op zaterdag 2 oktober 2010 19:16 schreef dr_Pieters het volgende:
[..]
Wat zou hier de motivatie van China zijn? Iemand enig verstand van macroeconomie en politiek hier?
Het doet me denken aan een verdeel en heers politiek. China krijgt op deze manier voet aan de grond in Europa (De Atheense haven is niet zo ver van het olierijke middenoosten), zet de Europese Unie met al hun voorwaarden te kakken, en trekt ook nog een kleine lange neus naar Amerika als redder van een natie uit het kamp van de US.
Het lijkt dan inderdaad alleen maar politiek, want Griekenland heeft niets te bieden aan China. Of zou China hun geld gewoon liever investeren in euro's dan in dollars? Maar dan zouden er wel betere opties zijn dan Griekenland "redden" toch?quote:Op zaterdag 2 oktober 2010 19:21 schreef Blandigan het volgende:
[..]
Chinezen doorgronden is een kunst op zich. Ik kan wel een gokje wagen.
Het doet me denken aan een verdeel en heers politiek. China krijgt op deze manier voet aan de grond in Europa (De Atheense haven is niet zo ver van het olierijke middenoosten), zet de Europese Unie met al hun voorwaarden te kakken, en trekt ook nog een kleine lange neus naar Amerika als redder van een natie uit het kamp van de US.
Je zou brazilie en china kunnen hedgenquote:
[..]
Europa doet er ook vrolijk aan mee.
We produceren haast niets meer, behalve "diensten".
Onderwijs wordt uitgehold.
Ik word er toch wel somber door...
I am a Chinese college students, I have a loving father, but I can not help him, he needs to do heart bypass surgery, I can not help him, because the cost of 100,000 or so needed, please help me, lifelong You pray Thank you!
Denk eerder het veilig opslaan van containers waar mineralen in zitten die uit Afrika komen.quote:Op zaterdag 2 oktober 2010 19:16 schreef dr_Pieters het volgende:
[..]
Wat zou hier de motivatie van China zijn? Iemand enig verstand van macroeconomie en politiek hier?
China heeft geld teveel, beetje shoppen in Europa, niks mis mee.
No bad soldiers under a good leader
Ik las vandaag een leuk stukje over Jim Chanos in Fortune magazine. Gelukkig ook (aangepast) online te lezen
http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2010/11/17/chanos-vs-china/quote:Chanos vs. China
Posted by Fortune
November 17, 2010 3:00 am
The influential short-seller is betting that China's economy is about to implode in a spectacular real estate bust. A lot of people are hoping that Chanos - who called Enron right - is wrong this time.
By Bill Powell, contributor
The scene is a cocktail party high above the Shanghai skyline on a summer night a few months ago. Our host is a Master of the Hedge Fund Universe, one who doesn't want to be identified in the press. We'll call him Pete. Pete comes to China at least twice a year to stay abreast of what's happening in the world's most dynamic economy. He has said, in fact, that if he didn't have kids in school in the U.S., he would consider moving here, so bright is the future. In attendance are other hedge fund investors, venture capitalists, and fund managers, China bulls all. If there is one sure-fire way to ruin the atmosphere on such a pleasant evening, it is this: Ask the crowd what they think of the legendary short-seller James Chanos, CEO of Manhattan-based Kynikos Associates.
So that's what I do.
"Hey," I say to a cluster of people surrounding Pete. "Did you guys see what Jim Chanos said about China on Charlie Rose the other night?"
"No," says an American venture capitalist working in Shanghai. "What did he say?"
"He said, 'China's on an economic treadmill to hell.' "
For over a year now Chanos -- the man who got Enron (among other things) right before anyone else -- has been on a rampage about China. The guy who became famous -- and rich -- shorting companies now says he is shorting the entire country.
When I mention the "treadmill to hell" line to the group in Shanghai, the reaction is the usual one when Chanos's name comes up here: "What does he know about China?" the American VC asks. "Has he ever lived here? Does he have staff here? Does he speak Chinese?"
The answers are no, no, and no. But our host, who counts Chanos as a friend, knows that is not the point. "He did get Enron right," Pete says. "And Tyco. And the whole mortgage bust." He concludes: "Look, he may be wrong, but you need to tell me why he's wrong, not point out that he doesn't live here."
Chanos smiles when I relate the story to him on a recent morning in New York. He knows what a lightning rod he has become. "The only time I have ever been heckled giving an investment presentation was earlier this year at Oxford," he says. "Some Chinese graduate students got so annoyed with me that they started to shout me down, saying the same sort of stuff: 'What do you know about China? How dare you say such things!' "
It's not, of course, just young Chinese people who get worked up on the subject. What Fortune Global 500 company isn't betting that China is the future? For many companies, the possibility that Jim Chanos could be right, that there could be a U.S.-or-Japanese-style bust in China, is beyond scary. It's unthinkable.
Something unprecedented
How did Chanos come to his China obsession? It started in 2009, when he and his team at Kynikos looked at commodity prices and the stocks of big mining companies. "Everything we did in our microwork [on commodities] kept leading us back to China's property market," Chanos says. China's construction boom was driving demand for nearly every basic material.
One day, at a research conference in 2009, Chanos listened to an analyst tick off numbers about the scale of China's building boom. "He said they were building 5 billion square meters of new residential and office space -- 2.6 billion square meters in new office space alone. I said to him, 'You must have the decimal point in the wrong place.' He said no, the numbers are right. So do the math: That's almost 30 billion square feet of new construction. There are 1.3 billion people in China. [In terms of new office space alone] that amounts to about a five-by-five-foot cubicle for every man, woman, and child in the country. That's when it dawned on me that China was embarking on something unprecedented.''
Kynikos didn't post anyone in China. Analysts make occasional research trips, though Chanos himself does not. Given his reputation there, he says, "it's probably best that I don't go. I can just see the New York Post headline: NEW YORK INVESTOR KILLED IN MYSTERIOUS ONE-MAN EARTHQUAKE."
Chanos says that underlying his firm's analysis are data the Chinese government itself reports publicly, such as numbers from the Bureau of Statistics and the National Development and Reform Commission, the country's most powerful economics ministry. In the past year, he says, his team has developed a "proprietary database" that tracks real estate sales in China. "We are not fudging data or just hearing or seeing what we want to hear and see," he insists. And he has a standard retort to those who say you can't know China because you don't live there: "I didn't work at Enron either."
So many empty properties
To understand Chanos's China skepticism -- he calls it "Dubai times 1,000" -- it's worth visiting the Rose and Ginko Valley housing development near Sheshan Mountain, a new suburb outside Shanghai. Block after block after block of villas have gone up. And they are empty.
In the country's largest, most affluent cities -- Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen, known as tier-one cities to the real estate cognoscenti -- it is not an unusual phenomenon. There is a lot of new, unoccupied housing in China. Just how much -- and just how much of a concern it should be -- is a central debate.
Fixed-asset investment accounts for more than 60% of China's overall GDP. No other major economy even comes close. And of that fixed investment, slightly less than a quarter is attributable to new real estate investment.
There are reliable data on the amount of new construction under way each year, and on how much is sold. In 2009, for instance, buyers in China purchased 44% more residential floor space than they did in 2008.
Unoccupied houses in a subdivision in the Kangbashi district outside Ordos City, Inner Mongolia
But there are no official estimates yet for the vacancy rates for private housing, for how much of that new housing bought is actually occupied. (The government, signaling that it understands how much it matters, is carrying out a census now to try to get a grip on the question.)
Consider the Sheshan project. A spokesman for the Chongqing-based development company would say only that almost all the units were sold in advance. That, in fact, has been standard-operating procedure in the market for new housing in China. Buyers plunk down money based on a plan, and the developer takes those commitments to the bank to get financing for construction. Very few projects are done on spec.
But that still leaves the question that makes a lot of people nervous -- and Chanos bearish -- about China: Why are so many flats and villas that have been bought and paid for empty? And how could that augur anything but pain for the real estate market in China? And if it means pain for the real estate market, considering that new property sales accounted for 14% of GDP in 2009, doesn't that mean trouble, sooner or later, for the broader economy?
That the real estate market in China is hugely speculative is not in dispute. An investor who lives near me in suburban Shanghai has bought -- count 'em -- 43 units over the past three years. He is still sitting on them, because, he believes, prices will continue going up.
Chanos ticks off reasons for that kind of behavior. Individual Chinese investors are limited in where they can put their renminbi. They can stash it in a standard bank account and receive a negative rate of return, given an inflation rate running at about 3%. They can put the money in the stock market, but equities in China are much more volatile than those in developed markets. Capital controls limit investment opportunities for individuals abroad. So that leaves real estate.
Chanos acknowledges that China's emerging middle class sees real estate as a store of value. To many, buying an apartment in Shanghai or Beijing is like buying a bar of gold. And many -- "too many," Chanos says -- have kept on buying as prices have gone up in the past five years.
Chanos's team, like a lot of other people, is trying to get a grip on just how many empty units there are in China. One prominent bear in China, independent economist Andy Xie, has put the amount at the equivalent of 15% of GDP. Chanos doesn't endorse that specific figure but believes "it's a big problem, and it's getting worse, not better, as more units come onstream."
Chanos: Right or wrong?
There's no question the speculative fervor in real estate has captured the Chinese government's attention. Last spring Beijing moved to stiffen financing requirements, and it is trying to limit the number of units any single investor can buy to two. For a time that did cool off the market. But Chanos points out that prices are rising again, and more than 30 million new apartments, villas, and houses are due to come onto the market next year. If the government intensifies its efforts to try to limit speculation, the market may turn down sooner than most think, Chanos believes. And if the government doesn't intensify the effort against speculators, "they'll just be climbing up a few more rungs on the diving board." Either way, he says, "they're going to end up in the same place." Consider Dubai, he says: At the peak of its building boom, there were 240 square meters of property under development for every $1 million in national GDP. In urban China today that ratio is four times as high. "We've seen this movie before," he says. Whether it was Dubai a couple of years ago, Thailand and Indonesia during the Asian crisis of the late '90s, or Tokyo circa 1989, "this always ends badly."
Chanos puts his money where his mouth is. Late last month he went before the Grant's Interest Rate Observer conference at the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan and not only made his case for being bearish on China, but ticked off individual stocks that he is shorting. Poly HK is one: a real estate developer that trades on the Hong Kong exchange (and a company that Goldman Sachs (GS) recommended as a buy as recently as last month). It's a state-owned company that started out as a defense contractor but, enticed by the real estate boom, has plunged in as a property developer. Chanos is also short the listing for the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. And he believes that China Merchants Bank, one of Beijing's largest, is deeply exposed to the financing affiliates of local governments throughout China. About 11% of its total loans outstanding, according to Chanos, are to these local financing affiliates (known as local government funding vehicles, or LGFVs).
Why does that matter? A key prop under the bullish case for China's real estate market is lack of leverage. The financial system is simply not going to be at risk, the thinking goes, even if there is a real estate bust. But Chanos believes the LGFVs are deeply exposed to property development, and that if there is a turn in the market, the pain felt by China Merchants Bank, as well as others, will be considerable. Victor Shih, a professor at Northwestern University, did a study earlier this year and concluded that these LGFVs accumulated $1.6 trillion in new debt from 2004 to 2009. As Chanos points out, China's own bank regulator has recently been moving to rein in local borrowing, after concluding that 26% of the outstanding debt is "high risk."
A downturn in China would have serious ripple effects throughout the world. Chanos believes the iron ore producers, and Brazilian giant Vale (VALE) in particular, will be victims. China's huge capital investment has required vast amounts of steel and other metals, and that in turn has made it the largest market in the world for iron ore. Vale traded in early November near a 52-week high, and its CEO, Roger Agnelli, recently boasted that he has the biggest fleet of ships in the world outside of the U.S. Navy. If you take Chanos's view of the world, that's not a good thing. As he put it, "They're going to have a lot of empty ships on their hands."
A case for the bulls
Short-sellers are generally derided until and unless they turn out to be right. So it is now. Sentiment about China is so optimistic that people think Chanos either has lost his mind or is somehow involved in a giant hip fake and can't really be serious. (For the record, he won't say how much of Kynikos's more than $1 billion under management is in play in China-related positions.) "Why do I go public with this?" he asks. "For the same reason I did with Enron. All the public ever hears is the longs. I have a case to make, and I have no hesitation making it. These are our convictions about China, and we're acting on them. So argue with me. We want to hear the counterarguments. Believe me, we do.''
Plenty of people are willing to take him up. The China bulls' case has many parts, but the most important is leverage -- or rather, the lack of it. Consider the gentleman -- his name is Cheng Yue Shi -- who told me that he owned 43 flats in and around Shanghai. He doesn't rent out any of them -- which is not uncommon in China; rents are cheap, and many owners therefore believe the time and hassle of being a landlord isn't worth it. And of the 43 units he owns, he paid for every single one of them -- not a single mortgage involved. According to a recent study by CLSA Asia Pacific Securities, the use of mortgages is increasing in China, but only 40% of all houses purchased are debt-financed. Even when they are, Chinese buyers typically have to put down 30% or more of the sales price.
No liar loans here. No securitization of mortgages. This is housing finance done the old-fashioned way: The buyers have skin in the game. The lack of leverage throughout the system should mean that even if there is a significant decline in real estate prices, the financial system in China is unlikely to be crippled.
Chanos argues that there is more debt held off the books in local financing vehicles than the bulls care to admit, and that bad loans, once the real estate market turns down, will pile up more quickly than most think. This is an area in which government regulators in China have acknowledged they need to get more information into the marketplace, but even with what's known publicly, the bulls simply disagree with Chanos. Arthur Kroeber, managing director of Gave- Kal Dragonomics, a Beijing-based economic consultancy, says the central government is already forcing local governments to scale back borrowing, and in fact has ordered closed several LGFVs that did not have enough revenue to service their loans from banks. "China's government debt," Kroeber says, "is clearly manageable."
The second component of the bullish case is straightforward: They say the combination of price spikes and overbuilding in Beijing and Shanghai simply gets too much attention. Andy Rothman, the chief China economist for CLSA, notes that the total amount of floor space bought in smaller, tier-three cities (where nearly 357 million people -- or 57% of China's urban population -- reside) has been slowly increasing as a percentage of the national total. And in those cities prices are up to 70% lower than they are in the four richest cities in the country: Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou. "There is no national housing bubble," Rothman asserts.
The guy who'll get China over the goal line
Personal income, moreover, continues to rise in China, as does consumption. In the first half of this year, real urban disposable income rose by more than 6%, on top of a 10% rise last year. "Rising incomes still support middle-class affordability," Rothman says. As a result, "it's the world's best consumption story."
Chanos's response to those two basic points is forthright: "It's an economy on steroids," he says. Just as Japan in the 1980s grew largely on the back of capital investment, eventually it has to stop. "Japan became a capital-destruction machine, and that's what China is now. You have an economy that's 60% fixed-asset investment, and not even in the developing world is that sustainable. It wasn't in Japan; it wasn't in Korea."
Chanos is agnostic as to the timing of when a serious China bust might come, nor does he have specific ideas as to what might trigger a downturn. He just believes it's coming. One possibility -- reflected by a steep stock market decline on Nov. 12 -- is that accelerating inflation may force China's central bank to tighten credit more quickly than expected, putting additional pressure on real estate developers.
I tell him toward the end of an interview that I, too, am invested in China, that in fact I'm long real estate. My wife and I bought a modest house in suburban Shanghai a few years ago, and, on paper anyway, we've done pretty well. Similar houses in our area have sold for considerably more than what we paid. He smiles and says, "Well, good luck with that."
In truth, I am still, relatively speaking, a China bull. But I live near the Rose and Ginko Valley development, and even before meeting Chanos, I must admit, each time I drove by it at night, I secretly wished I would see a few lights on. I still do -- now more than ever.
dit past hier ook goed bij:quote:Op maandag 6 december 2010 23:53 schreef tjoptjop het volgende:
Ik las vandaag een leuk stukje over Jim Chanos in Fortune magazine. Gelukkig ook (aangepast) online te lezen
[..]
http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2010/11/17/chanos-vs-china/
http://historysquared.com(...)or-wears-no-clothes/
1/10 Van de rappers dankt zijn bestaan in Amerika aan de Nederlanders die zijn voorouders met een cruiseschip uit hun hongerige landen ophaalde om te werken op prachtige plantages.
"Oorlog is de overtreffende trap van concurrentie."
"Oorlog is de overtreffende trap van concurrentie."
zou me niks verbazen want nu wordt de VS langzaam maar zeker als een leugenachtig land ontmaskert die zelfs zijn bondgenoten jarenlang heeft voorgelogen en beduvelt voor eigen gewin, en nu zich als een verongelijkte opstelt.quote:
Zoiets zouden de amerikanen zien als een directe oorlogsdreiging.
..................
Yvonne schreef op maandag 31 oktober 2011 @
13:59:43 in DEF SC #282 aan AchJa & Co
Vanaf hier en nu stopt het in DEF én op FOK!
Ik wil hier een normale SC zonder gebitch!
13:59:43 in DEF SC #282 aan AchJa & Co
Vanaf hier en nu stopt het in DEF én op FOK!
Ik wil hier een normale SC zonder gebitch!
Het heeft echt bizarre vormen aangenomen. Zeker als je het ook nog eens vergelijkt met bekende huizenbubbels als Japan jaren 90 en VS recentelijk. Dat kannatuurlijk niet goed gaan.quote:
[..]
dit past hier ook goed bij:
http://historysquared.com(...)or-wears-no-clothes/
Ben benieuwd wie er straks voor het vuurpeleton moeten verschijnen
Bijzonder interessant stuk idd. Zitten er nog fokkers in China die dit soort verhalen first hand kunnen bevestigen?quote:
http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2010/11/17/chanos-vs-china/
Please Move The Deer Crossing Sign
Genoeg foto's en filmpjes van die spooksteden te vinden in elk geval.quote:
[..]
Bijzonder interessant stuk idd. Zitten er nog fokkers in China die dit soort verhalen first hand kunnen bevestigen?
Ik kan me zo 123 ook nog herinneren dat er een topic hier was over het grootste winkelcentrum ter wereld...... leeg
preciesquote:
Indd.. als ze hun marktpositie kwijtraken en verovereren ze het maar weer terug met nuke's. Zijn net kleine kinderen op de basisschool die de baas willen blijven
en met Wikileaks wordt dat andermaal onderschreven hoe hypocriet die yanks eigenlijk zijn. 
Yvonne schreef op maandag 31 oktober 2011 @
13:59:43 in DEF SC #282 aan AchJa & Co
Vanaf hier en nu stopt het in DEF én op FOK!
Ik wil hier een normale SC zonder gebitch!
13:59:43 in DEF SC #282 aan AchJa & Co
Vanaf hier en nu stopt het in DEF én op FOK!
Ik wil hier een normale SC zonder gebitch!
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